


Boiling Point

by last_illusions (injured_eternity)



Category: CSI: Miami
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-08-26
Updated: 2006-08-26
Packaged: 2017-10-17 09:27:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/175370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/injured_eternity/pseuds/last_illusions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He has big shoes to fill. Horatio, Calleigh, and Eric discuss Ryan's place on the team.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boiling Point

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers: 3x19 ["Sex & Taxes"]

Muttering furiously under his breath, much as he had been since he had left the wharf, Eric Delko slammed his way into the locker room. Thankfully for everyone else, it was empty, since whatever hapless person that might been in his way would have been subject to an exceptionally furious Cuban. With nothing else around at his disposal, he slammed a tightly clenched fist into the metal door of his locker—the pain beat yelling loudly enough to dispense with the hearing of every unlucky person within a two-mile radius, alongside the questions it would undoubtedly draw.

 _Damn him_! The thought had been running through his mind like a bad song for about the same duration of time that he’d spent growling to himself. The very fact that Wolfe had had the nerve to take the evidence _he had found_ to Horatio and claim the credit made his ire peak in a way that little else had in quite a while. He hardly considered himself possessive and prone to sucking up to his boss, but that had crossed the line. In their line of work, when the unexpected happened in the worst situations, it was an unspoken promise to watch one another’s backs—they didn’t relegate that job to uniforms, and they didn’t need a written contract. Or rather, they hadn’t until Ryan Wolfe had stepped from beat cop to CSI.

Calleigh would have waited. Horatio would have waited, the fact that he was the one who needed the evidence completely aside. Hell, _Valera_ would have waited, and she didn’t even work the field. For that matter, the uniform on duty had waited, and Eric barely knew the guy’s name, if he knew it at all. At the very least, waiting until he _got out of the water_ would have been courteous—he might have _told_ Wolfe to go without him at that point, since he knew how long it took to remove his gear.

But of course life didn’t work out like that. As another low, admittedly petulant growl escaped him, his fist connected with the locker again, though the idea of nailing Wolfe’s shut with his bare hand was becoming more and more appealing.

“What’d your locker do to you?” Calleigh’s familiar, sweet drawl asked, amusement apparent in her voice.

He turned a dark glare on her, muttering, “Nothing,” and her expression changed to one of concern.

“Whoa, Eric—what happened?” His fist tightened of its own accord, and she grabbed his arm before he could attempt to realign his locker door again. “Don’t you dare,” she warned him. “Sit down before you break right through the door.”

Still muttering vague phrases she couldn’t quite catch—though judging from his tone, she was probably better off that way—he sat. Even while seeing as much crimson as he was, he knew that when Calleigh Duquesne told you to sit, you sat. If Calleigh Duquesne asked you to stand on your head, you asked for how long, not why.

Lightly, her hands lowered to his shoulders, slowly kneading the tension out of his tight muscles. “Want to talk about it?”

Heaving a sigh and relishing the feel of her strong fingers—damn, but this woman knew how to give a massage!—he mumbled something to his shoes.

“What?”

“I said it’s Wolfe.”

Almost imperceptibly, her fingers tightened, but it was gone almost before he could be certain it had even happened. “What about him?” she asked, her tone remaining even.

Sighing again, he shook his head. “We went down to the harbor, and I went in to see if I could find anything. I found that keygun H needed and, since Wolfe was standing on the dock, handed it to him. Had no idea what it was, for that matter, so I explained it. Then he leaves. Doesn’t so much as wait for me to get out of the water; just left—said H needed the evidence ASAP.”

“Well, that’s a new one,” she remarked, unable to keep the dry note out of her voice, and Eric chuckled darkly in response.

“No kidding—I mean, yeah, he’s competitive, and he’s sort of done things like that before, but never to that extent.”

There was a moment’s pause before Calleigh added, “He’s… he’s stuck in a tight spot, though…”

At that, Eric turned to face her, shock written across his features. “You’re siding with him.”

It was a statement, not a question, but Calleigh shook her head in response. “No. But think about it, Eric,” she answered, sitting on the bench beside him. “I was talking to Horatio about him a week or two ago, about how Ryan seemed… I don’t know—almost trying to prove himself here.”

“And what’d he say?”

“That as much as we’re all trying to get used to him as a new member of the team, he’s trying to do the same,” Horatio’s smooth baritone answered from around the row of lockers, startling both of his CSIs.

“H,” Eric responded, feeling almost a bit sheepish—he hadn’t intended to tell Horatio, since it wasn’t as though they were all in the first grade, threatening to tell the teacher on one another. “Uh, how long’ve you been standing there?”

A low chuckle escaped his boss, surprising him as much as it did Calleigh—Horatio hadn’t really had much cause to laugh as of late. “Long enough,” he admitted, sitting down across from the two and surprising them further, since when was the last time they had any of them had the chance to sit down as a team and talk?

“I knew who found that keygun, Eric,” came his soft reassurance. “He told me it was _in_ the water, and who else but you would have gone in? I know none of the other divers went with you.”

“Sorry, H. I didn’t mean—“

Horatio held up a hand, effectively cutting the younger man off. “We all miss Speed,” he reminded them, openly acknowledging their friend’s death for perhaps the first time, “but it isn’t necessarily fair to make Wolfe feel like all he is in this department is a replacement.” His decidedly ubiquitous sunglasses dangled from his fingers, and he looked up, meeting both their eyes in turn. “Yes, perhaps he has done things that none of us would now, but we’ve all been the rookie in our turn—and none of us came in to take the place of a brother officer killed on duty. He has done well, given the sudden transfer, and, as I told Calleigh, he deserves the same chance any of us would have had—to prove himself without feeling like he has to.”

“He still didn’t have to take off on me like that,” Eric pointed out, and both his colleagues nodded.

“He didn’t,” his boss agreed. “You wouldn’t have, nor would Calleigh or I have left like that, but we’ve been with that tacit agreement for so long that it may as well be the Ten Commandments. He has yet to come to learn that—it was a mistake of ignorance, Eric, more than one of intentional disregard.”

With a slow shake of her head, Calleigh sighed. “He has big shoes to fill.”

“He does, and though he has much to learn on the job, he is not stupid.” Rising, the other two following suit, Horatio pocketed his glasses. “Get back on the case,” he ordered, a small smile taking away the bite of the words. “Give him time.”

As he turned to walk away, Eric stopped him. “H.” He turned, an eyebrow raised expectantly, and the younger man smiled. “Thanks.”

Dipping his head in a graceful nod, the redhead was gone as silently as he had come, but things had been said that they all needed to hear. The team rapport had weakened somewhat with Speed’s death, and the chance to talk amongst themselves had been lost with it. Sorely missed, yes, but lost nonetheless, and the past ten minutes alone had helped.

A smile played at the corners of Eric’s lips.

“What?” Calleigh asked, curious.

“Just thinking about what Speed would say if he’d been here.”

“He’d be laughing his head off at all three of us,” she confirmed, chuckling herself. “That’s the old Horatio,” she added with a slightly wistful smile.

“What?” It was Eric’s turn to be puzzled, but Calleigh shook it off.

“Nothing. Back to work—we have a rookie to torture.”

  
 _Finis._

 _Feedback is always appreciated._


End file.
